Business to Business Marketing Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Business to Business Marketing - Term Paper Example Marketing is a broad spectrum of activities that define the function of a market – technically, markets provide grounds for the exchange of value. In past days, it was goods vs. goods i.e. the barter system while in present days, its goods vs. monetary terms – the money value. In simpler terms, the seller puts a price tag on the products and services, buyers reach, negotiate, and purchase – this is a simple market cycle/activity. Marketing includes all these activities and beyond as well – activities that start from attracting the customer to the point of sales, completion of transaction, and relationships beyond to ensure repeat purchases. Prior to pouring deep into the project and research of the said paper, it is important to understand the forms of markets that exist. The fundamental form of division of markets based on the customer type is the area of interest for this research paper. In accordance with Hooley (2007), there are mainly two types of mar kets that exist across the broader scale in marketing terms; Consumer Markets & Industrial Markets – the latter is also known as Business Markets. The further description and analytics of the two are discussed in the forthcoming sections. Industrial Markets According to Doyle (2006), Industrial Markets, also known as B2B (i.e. Business to Business) Markets involve the sales of goods and services between businesses – not aimed directly at the customers. These may include examples such as: Selling raw material from one organization to another e.g. wood seller to furniture maker like IKEA Selling final products from one organization to another e.g. a firm purchasing Blackberry handsets from RIM (Research In Motion) Corporate Wing Corporate Sales of Services Outsourcing deals such as call centres Manufacturer to Whole-seller, Whole-seller to Retailers i.e. the intermediary set up Thus, if in a transaction, the buyer and seller both are businesses, then the arrangement is k nown as a B2B market/structure/arrangement. According to Aaker (2007) B2B markets have a small number of buyers, with larger requirements; for example, Wal-Mart may purchase a number of laptops from IBM or Dell, but an individual consumer may purchase just one – so fewer transactions but individually, the worth of a single transaction is on the higher side as more units are involved (Menon, 2005). B2B purchases are generally a lengthy, systematic, and structured process that involves at least one department and a number of individuals from either side. Other than routine purchases that involve regular order placing, the process starts by raising an RFQ (Request for Quotation), to which firms respond with an EOI (Expression of Interest); generally, the supply chain or procurement department analyzes the quotations with a variety of processes, and then gradually the purchase is made (Wardell, Wynter, and Helander, 2008). The different processes include searching, shortlisting, discussions, negotiations, sampling, contracts, order placement, order delivering, replenishment, etc. With long term commitments, strategic alliances are formed between the businesses. Payment terms are also negotiated – the transactions generally do not have a quick outflow of cash but credit terms. For each product being sold, there are a number of suppliers and manufacturers involved behind the product’s formation.